Ericsson broadcast services head Thorsten Sauer has pledged to grow its Red Bee creative division as the company’s exclusive promo creation deal with the BBC draws to a close.
Two of Red Bee’s most high-profile clients, the BBC and UKTV, have ended their promo production deals with the firm. The BBC will take some promo creation inhouse when its Red Bee deal concludes at the end of the year, while UKTV’s 10-year contract with Red Bee expired at the end of June.
But Sauer said he had faith in the division’s pedigree and that he expected it to grow.
“There are skills contained within the creative business that are appreciated by our customers, and we will spend much more effort in developing that part of the business,” Sauer said.
“When you look at how viewers interact with content when using a VoD service, it is a fantastic example of a lot of that knowledge. We have the technical back-end capabilities, but it is important to help customers also create a great service.”
Sauer pointed to some of Red Bee’s recent work, including its refresh of NBC Universal’s film channel Studio Universal, which was unveiled last week.
Studio Universal is available across Africa, Latin America, Brazil and Italy. Sauer said: “It was a new geography and cultural context, but our team has an appreciation of content and are good translators of it. We will do more of that, through recruitment, but first and foremost we will bring the teams [within Ericsson] closer together and have a more intense exchange when, for example, our customers want to launch a new OTT service.”
No comments yet